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HRK Plenum appeals to the Federalism Commission of the Bundestag und Bundesrat: Maintain the sensible division of responsibilities between the federation and the states in higher education
In the run-up to the inaugural meeting of the "Commission on the Modernisation of the Federal Order" of the two German houses of parliament (Bundestag and Bundesrat) being held next Friday, the Association of Universities and other Higher Education Institutions in Germany (Hochschulrektorenkonferenz - HRK) expressed its support for the continuation of joint funding by the federation and the states for research and higher education construction. The 201st HRK Plenum, which met in Bonn on Tuesday 4 November, expressed its concern that proven structures in higher education might be broken up within the course of the general debate on reorganising federalism in Germany.Speaking on the topic in Berlin on the day after the Plenary Assembly, HRK President Professor Dr. Peter Gaehtgens stated that: "Joint federal and state research funding must definitely be maintained," continuing that "it guarantees research a high degree of independence from the influences of daily politics." Among other effects, he said, higher education institutions feared that if the federation were to be solely responsible, then university research could be steered by its political priorities. And the states also needed to be involved in financing the German Research Foundation (Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft - DFG), the central funding institution for university research, because they were responsible for making sure that their higher education institutions get core research funding.
On the other hand, if university construction were to be exclusively financed by the states in the future, then the HRK can see a danger of higher education institutions in the poorer federal states not getting the requisite funding for structural redevelopments and major equipment purchases. HRK President Gaehtgens stated: "In the past, the structural condition of and equipment levels at universities only managed to develop relatively evenly thanks to the system of shared funding. This also needs to be guaranteed in the future. There is the real danger that university building could come to a complete standstill in some states when federal funding stops. If the same amount of funds continued to go to the states, then, in the face of general budgetary problems, it could not be ruled out that these fund might disappear into other departments' coffers. In addition, the discontinuation of shared funding would also bring to an end the important overall assessment of a higher education institution's development which is competently carried out by the German Science Council (Wissenschaftsrat) when evaluating building or equipment applications."
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